Interview with
Cyrill Schläpfer by Bart Plantega for Radio Patapoe FM, Amsterdam, March 2008

BP: How are you? Did you have a decent start into 2008?

CS: Hopefully yes. For my part I did it playing the accordion in a cantina in
Luzern... I guess ["Die Waeldstatte"] was just too much of a cargo for any
consumer. I try not to reflect about WHAT I have done all these past years:
"JESUS: By what devil I have been ridden...??"

BP: And the reviews?

CS: I had some quite enthusiastic reviews in the press for being a "maniac" and
having created a monster product. I really cannot complain about decent
articles, but that "thing" has not yet proved to be something people want to buy.
But we have to face reality: nobody spends money anymore to buy "soundcarriers",
this was custom from the previous century.... At the moment all the articles in
German are listed under:

BP: And the visuals for this 4-CD, 3-DVD boxset plus photos and liner notes!!?

CS: As you know, adding pictures to the soundtrack was my desperate attempt to
make the "thing" a little bit more accessible to an audience. So I was surprised
and very pleased at being invited to present "The Waldstätte" last January as an
"experimental music film" that opened the Swiss Filmfestival in Solothurn ...
The feedbackfrom the festival: the festival audience LEFT the theatre [before
the end of the film], BUT in a review in the flagship NZZs, the senior film
critic applauded it as "the outstanding artistic contribution to the festival..."
As you know, this is balsam for the soul, but does not pay the rent.

BP: People, general cinema-goers, etc. are always grumbling about the critics
hating everything. But actually, it is often a critic who is MORE open to a new
[non-Hollywood] film than general audiences who have taken on the identity of
consumers, consumers of viewing product and thus view films as is expected of
them as consumers.

CS: As part of a music film evening, last week, I showed it as a single
screening in 3 cinemas in Bern, Zurich and Luzern. The Zurich and Lucerne shows
were sold out. So I haven't lost all my confidence in the future yet... I,
indeed, underestimated the pure heaviness of the film [DVDs] and how much it
demands of its listener/viewer. I get feedback from viewers such as: "overwhelming,
deep-sea meditation, Swiss Darkness Video, pure shamanismus, psychedelic water
ballet, unnecessary, too long, knocking out, left speechless etc."

BP: Well, this is a massive project, a labor of love - 4 cds and 3 dvds devoted
to the steamboats and paddleboats that cross Lake Luzern filled with commuters
and tourists, hikers, skiers and nature lovers. What possessed you to do this
project of documenting the boats, the sounds they make?

CS: At the beginning, it was simply the horns, the ship-pipes, which I love to
hear; especially from far away, embedded in the natural echoes of the mountains,
the sounds travelling on the plane and smooth surface of the water. These are
among the familiar sounds [of my environment] for me like my mother tongue,
church bells, cowbells, insects, birds, etc.... It's horrible to even think of
not being able to hear these sounds anymore or being concealed by the generic
noise of our pornographic civilization. That's why I recorded those sounds
without the commuters and tourists, hikers, skiiers and nature lovers,
because they mask or even eliminate its magic.

WTM: I know your family has a summer house there along beautiful Lake Luzern.
Does the project, the recording of the steamboats, have something to do with
your memories as a child? Did the sounds enter your consciousness over the years?

CS: Sure, it is one of those important geographical places where these sounds
have been burned into my brain forever.

BP: It took you a long time to realize this project. 9 years? What was the
process for you? How did it get started? With field recordings?

CS: 11 years! I started in 1996. It was never planned as some gigantic Moby Dick
project. The initial idea was quite simple; a field recording, along the shore,
when the last regular daily cruise ends on 31 October, the last hour before the
ships go to sleep for the winter in the docks... Sometimes the captains do an
unofficial horn-jam session (a little farewell concerto with steamboat whistles).
But in 1996 it was raining, and there were loud cars and traffic noises; the
recorded material was disappointing. The following years, I got more interested
and decided to board when they went out for technical test cruises without
passengers. That was when I got in deep and surgical with my microphones and I
discovered the industrial beauty of the sound of old machines... machines that
are still working after 100 years, having sailed for up to 2 million kilometers...

BP: After you had gather a number of field recordings of the sounds of the
boats, what did you think about it? Did you notice the different sounds that
each boat makes? That they have their own personalities?

CS: Indeed, every ship has its characteristic acoustic fingerprint, its own
character. My personal discovery of doing this work was: material with a history
has a soul, or its being charged with something called " .... ", (this dos not
include plastic though). That was the point I decided to make, by composing a
musical piece, since I thought it was worth presenting to someone.

BP: I notice that one CD is comprised of what I would call symphonies and so do
you, in fact. They sound like compositions. How much did you manipulate the
actual sound, the sampling/repetition of sound or enhancement or alter them with
effects?

CS: For the symphony, I used exclusively sounds from the ships (whistles, horns,
metal, machines...) and water and natural ambience (birds, winds, thunder, rain,
etc.). I only pitched the sounds lower, trying to harmonize or find the harmony
in correlation with what was going on before or after. Besides that, I did a lot
of cutting and editing, (18,000 cuts in the symphony) and I reversed some of the
sound. But there is absolutely no addition of electronic synthesizer sound, or
effects like reverb, filtering or any of those sound-producer gadgets or
enhancers.

BP: What are the symphonies on CD1 [Symphonies] for you?

CS: I don't know yet. If or when I find a resonance, and find an audience that
would like to hear it or even hear it twice; it is only then that I would begin
to call it "music".

BP: the 2nd CD seems to be a document of one trip, all of the sonic / audio
details and visual details. How does that differ from CD1 in composition? Is it
more integral and less composed?

CS: Exactly, CD2 is composed only of natural sounds, no acoustic morphing
applied here. Still, I consider it a "composition" since you will not find such
pure and unadultered sound in nature. By which I mean: there is always acoustic
pollution like planes, cars, tourists, cash-machines, farts, crunching
french-fries, microwave ovens, cellular phones....

BP: I appreciate that as a listener but I also like the intrusions. There are
some on your other ambient [meadow/cowbell] series. Gunshots, thunder, a plane
overheadŠ Meanwhile, CD3 is comprised of acoustic portraits of 5 or 6 different
steamboats and here we get to hear your interest in their characters and
personalities as distinguished from one another.Tthey each create their own
atmosphere and have their own audio fingerprints.

CS: Exactly, no audio frauds here, all authentic, not a single frequency from
another ship mixed together.

BP: CD4 you call the "lexicon" and reminds me of the [especially the BBC] sound
effects records. Here we have the individual traits and aspects of each of the
boats presented. Like a personality chart. Why did you feel this was necessary?

CS: Yes, here my thought was: This specific CD is going to be my financial
safety-vest... I had the abstruse idea, that all the steam boat freaks, the
ship model builders, the museums will buy a CD with a listed sound/samples
archive of their favorite ships.... This is an error on my part: I can not sell
this CD neither.

BP: I understand that as an artist or maker of documentaries you would like to
capture all of this on a personal level. But on a historical / environmental
level, is it because these sounds are disappearing, because these boats are
being replaced? What do you hope to accomplish with this box set? [how many did
you make by the way?]

CS: This is exactly the question which burns painfully in my consciousness and
unconscious thoughts: Why? goddamned WHY? I have no answer here. This leaves me
somehow disillusioned and depressed. Again, I refer to the quote already cited:
"By what devil have I been ridden..." I will read Melville's Moby Dick again to
find out.... At any rate; I WILL NOT consult a shrink. Generally speaking, I
became a musician because of the girls.